let all the children boogie
by rabbit freer
Summary: Surreal scenes from a celebratory, painfully normal post-freshman summer. No aliens, no conspiracies, no martial law – but plenty of timelessly strange bedfellows nonetheless! Indecipherable from the weird, filmy outtakes leftover from strange film contest creations; theirs or otherwise.
1. castles made of sand

a/n: if you are a trans teenager, please, **never bind with ace bandages.** it is incredibly unsafe and can cause permanent damage to your ribs and chest.

featuring: transgender cary vs dysphoria, improper binding methods, and the closet.

warnings: abuse mentions, bruises, dysphoria, smoking (tobacco/marijuana) mention. **warning lists will be updated as necessary.**

* * *

_"a little indian brave who, before he was ten, played war games in the woods with his indian friends;  
__and he built a dream that when he grew up, he would be a fearless warrior indian chief."_

"S'late, we better pack up. Mom can't have us staying over tonight."

"Hey. Charles. Um, I kind of have to . . . like . . . do . . . a thing, after this, y'know, so, can I, like . . . go . . . now? Or something?"

Charles didn't buy it.

He rolled up the plastic mat, unfazed. "No. You played the damn game, you put your damn pieces away like everybody else." He glared over his shoulder. "No special privileges."

"No, like. I'm serious. I have to do something. Right now." His left bandage - the only one he needed to wear anymore, for reasons unknown - was starting to fray around the edges. One of the metal clasps was missing and the knuckle was covered in marker stains. A fresh wrap was in order.

The tone of voice made it obvious he was serious. Cary was always self-interested, but it wasn't like him to pass up the chance to boss other people around; he was a fast kid, but not this fast. He sighed.

"Is it life-threatening?"

He gulped, paused, and examined the prospective issue before responding, uncharacteristically meek. He stuttered. His eyes shifted.

"P-potentially."

"A'right, then go."

It seemed like he wasn't so much waiting for permission, but for forgiveness. The 10-4 was all it took and in a caffeinated blur (must've been the three cans of Coca-Cola or something) his jacket was gone, and he was gone. The door slammed with an unsatisfying _shunk._

A bored voice huffed from the couch. "Didn't take his pieces or nothin'." Martin tugged his shoes on. "Piece 'a shit."

"He had stuff to do." Preston stood up from behind the counter. "He usually doesn't walk out on us, he's one of our most dedicated players. He'll be back for his stuff tomorrow or something, cut 'im some slack for once."

Martin shifted to lay horizontally on the couch. "Fine."

"But I won't like it!" mocked a voice from the hallway two doors down.

"Will you _shut up_."

"Nah, you shut up," the voice laughed. "Pissbaby."

"I'm not a pissbaby! Don't call me that, you asshole!" He was about this close to dragging Joe out by the overgrown hair.

Martin didn't tell anyone he was lined up for three AP's and football next year for a reason.

"LADIES, ladies, please, you're both pretty. Now will _all_ of you pissbabies wrap it up and help me out over here, I've been hauling ass for five minutes."

"FiiiiiiIIiiIIIiiIne." Joe finally trudged out of the laundry hall over to the card table set up in the middle of the living room and started tossing small plastic bags across the room.

"Martin?" He let it fall on the floor before flopping over to grab it with one hand. Sandwich-size, opaque plastic, blue-and-purple ziplock. Two army men and three six-sided dice - red, blue, black. Faded name written in black permanent marker.

"Preston?" It fell on the oven behind him, missing his perfected outfielder's catch by a few inches. Snack-size, smooth plastic, thin clear ziplock. Three diorama figurines, two six-sided dice, and one 20-sided die - blue and gold.

"That's mine . . ." Joe shoved the bag in his pocket. Snack-size, opaque plastic, blue-and-purple ziplock. One army man, one train figurine, one 12-sided die, and one 20-sided die - amber and white.

"Charles, you've got yours?"

"S'in the bag. Which one of you's seeing Cary next."

It wasn't a question - more of a demand, but it at least gave the illusion of choice.

"I will, I'll bring it to 'im on my way home." The only bag that couldn't get mixed up with anyone else's; sandwich-size, purple plastic, thin ziplock. Five army men, and no dice.

Preston caught it that time.

* * *

_"many moons passed and more the dream grew strong, until tomorrow he would sing his first war song  
and fight his first battle, but something went wrong; surprise attack killed him in his sleep that night."_

The bathroom door nearly slammed shut, but he caught the handle in time to quietly pull it closed. There were dark rubber skid marks on the grimy tile floor he'd have to deal with later.

He threw his shirt in the hamper and winced. He'd hit himself up against the sink counter, right where the bandages ended.

A push on the heel against the slipping rug was enough to hold it in place, and slip his untied shoes off and to the side. He stumbled in his week-old socks across the tile, and faced himself in the mirror, staring at his greasy hair; his oily skin; his sunburned chest; the ochre bandages.

It was eleven o'clock at night and Cary Nelson was a mess.

It took several deep breaths and thirteen seconds of mental preparation before he tugged at the paperclip; he couldn't find his other fastener that morning, and it was the first day he'd bound before going to school. He sacrificed two for the gauze on his left hand - he had no scars on his chest, and it was more imperative to help the cuts on his palm and wrist heal before he could concern himself with his chest. A sharpened paperclip pierced three levels of bandage and fastened it well enough.

The bent metal fastener slipped off, and the bandages started to loosen.

They'd already lost their stretch over the weekend he'd worn them. Holding the edge between his index and middle finger, and unwrapping.

He shuddered at the knock at the door. "Cary? Everything alright in there?"

"Y-yeah, everything's fine, Lizzy."

"Y'sure?"

"Liz, I'm _sure!_ Go away!"

His sister paused cautiously. "You takin' a shit?"

"LIZ LEAVE."

Liz left.

He took another deep breath and looked at his chest in the mirror. Sore red lines from the bandage's edges and a thick indentation on his right side from where the edge of the bandage wrinkled and pressed into his skin burned.

He let out a pained breath as he held his right side and leaned against the counter.

Faded bruises splayed over his torso.

It wasn't the first time he'd seen it – heavy bruising had been a near-everyday phenomena when his dad was still around. Belts and knuckles inadvertently taught the Nelson kids basic first aid.

He wasn't out to his sisters or his mother, and he'd never experienced this kind of bruising before. This was, after all, the first day he'd bound for more than a few hours.

But basic common sense told him Ace Bandages weren't supposed to hurt this bad.

Cary ran his hand under the tepid faucet, failing to wash away dirt, ash, and dried sweat to no avail. It wouldn't make the bruising go away any faster, and it wouldn't make it hurt any less.

He shifted and looked down before dropping to the ground behind the bathroom door.

Knees tucked under his arms, crossed over his aching chest, he shuddered and let his bangs fall in front of his eyes.

He didn't want to look at himself.

A small, hot tear dripped on his forearm, but he only squeezed his arms tighter in front of his chest.

Ace Bandages weren't supposed to hurt this bad.

* * *

_"she drew her wheel chair to the edge of the shore, and to her legs she smiled, 'you won't hurt me no more.'  
but then a sight she'd never seen made her jump and say, 'look, a golden winged ship is passing my way!'  
and it really didn't have to stop...it just kept on going."_

The phone rang in the middle of the night.

"H . . . hello?"

The familiar voice on the other end of the line was shaky and raw. It sounded red.

The familiar voice on the other end of the line was crying.

" . . . Preston?"

He rolled over to lean up on his elbows. "Cary? I-is everything okay?"

"Preston, I . . . I need . . . I need help . . . I need your help-"

He snapped awake. "Cary, what's going on, tell me, what's going on, are you okay."

"I . . . I'm . . . you know how t- t- . . . t-"

Preston waited patiently on the other end.

"You know how to . . . take care of . . . of bruising, right?"

"Yeah . . . yeah, I do, what's going on? What happened? Something with your mom, or . . ."

"No, it's . . . it's not that, it's . . . I- I- . . . I wore the . . . the bandages today."

He took a deep breath.

"Is that-"

"Yeah. That's . . . that's how I got . . . the bruises."

Preston took another deep breath. He was, unsurprisingly, the only person Cary was out to; they'd both gone through the same social services program, were forced to attend the same seminars, and were routinely sent the same contact request letters from the social workers.

They trusted each other enough to call each other in the middle of the night asking how to take care of bruises.

This wasn't the first time it had happened.

"Okay. Um. Where . . . where are they."

"All . . . all over . . . it- it hurts, man, it hurts."

"I know. Just . . . stay calm." He sighed. " . . . Where are you?"

"A-at home . . . in . . . in the bathroom . . ."

"Can you get to a fridge?"

Cary sniffled on the other line. "Y- y . . . yeah . . . "

"Okay. Then I want you to go to the fridge."

"O- okay. . . "

He could hear Cary stumbling, trying to stand up, setting the phone down for a second before picking it back up and walking to what he presumed to be the kitchen.

He remembered when he had to phone Cary about things like this.

One night he'd had to call him at six in the morning because he physically couldn't look at himself in the mirror. Preston stayed home from school that day. He told the school he was sick. He felt like he was, but he wasn't.

Cary knew why.

"Okay. Are you at the fridge?"

"Y-yeah . . . "

"Okay, grab yourself some ice. Or, like, a bag of peas or something. Something cold."

" . . . Okay."

A minute or two of rustling was spent fidgeting anxiously with the blankets and glancing briefly down his shirt several fidgety times before Cary picked the phone back up again.

"I . . . I have . . . a bag of broccoli, is that okay?"

"S'your call. You think it'll work?"

"It should, I mean . . . it's . . . cold and . . . malleable."

"Then you'll be fine. Just hold it over the bruised areas and wait for it to stop hurting. Go get some rest, okay? Find me tomorrow, I'll help you out."

"O . . . okay." Cary sniffed again.

"T-thanks, Pres."

"Get some sleep. 'Night."

They hung up at the same time.

Preston used to phone Cary about things like this.

_"and so castles made of sand slip into the sea, eventually."_


	2. strawberry fields forever

a/n: characterization of preston taken from ThexOdds' "ABC." ( s/7350706/1/ABC)

featuring: foster-child preston x autistic martin vs conservative parents and midwest expectations.

warnings: ableism, abuse mentions, eating disorder mention, queerphobia mention, slurs. **warning lists will be updated as necessary.**

* * *

_"living is easy with eyes closed - misunderstanding all you see -  
__it's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out. i__t doesn't matter much to me."_

The record hummed and crackled as "Penny Lane" came to a fizzy end.

The general rule in the house was no music over half volume after nine, but he never played anything louder than that anyway. He'd gotten used to being quiet when his dad was still around – less of a house rule and more of a safety precaution that gets internalized over time.

The Andersons were much more lenient with those kinds of things. As long as it wasn't the Grateful Dead or Jimi Hendrix – which it usually turned to after a certain period of time – they wouldn't give Chris or Preston much flack about the radio. It was 11 o'clock and the sound was hardly up at all.

He lazily flopped over, half-asleep, to flip the record and drop the needle again.

A familiar synthline whistled between the soft snap-crackle-pop of the vinyl. The base twanged softly and the drums clicked quietly. The melodic guitar line played on.

The song first got radio play when he was two years old. It was one of his earlier memories, and a pretty fond lullaby to boot.

When he was around five years old, he'd begun rummaging through his parents' – his mother's – measly record collection, and discovered the A-side single still in the plastic.

He never liked "Penny Lane," because it reminded him too much of his old house on Pine Street, where his mom and dad and sister and Chris and he used to live, before his dad was arrested and his sister went to Strawberry Fields forever.

The B-side reminded him of his mom.

The social workers allowed him and Chris to grab a few things to take with them to the youth home while the Andersons set up. Preston made a beeline for the record box; his twiggy arms could only grab about seven, and lots of them dropped on the floor, but a Doors record and "Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever" remained.

It was his one solace during the dank weekend at the youth home. At least it gave him the chance to learn all the words. They get internalized over time.

He rolled over on his back, his hands on his stomach, staring at the ceiling, absentmindedly mouthing the words.

'_Let me take you down, 'cause I'm goin' to . . . Strawberry Fields . . . '_

' _. . . nothing is real . . . with nothing to get hung about . . .'_

The walkie-talkie buzzed on the corner of the table, interrupting the quiet melody.

"M'outside."

He sat up groggily, three-quarters-asleep, and pawed around in the dark for the small black box. His hand hit the antennae, which was good enough. He fumbled for the button.

"'Kay. M'on my way down."

"A'right."

He flipped the small side switch to off and the small green light flickered to red.

' _. . . Strawberry Fields forever.'_

He let the first verse come to a slow stop before lifting the needle and dropping it carefully on the corner of the record player. The LP spun lazily to a soft halt, and he left it there.

His shoes were already tied a little too loose and set by the door. An old, dirty peach pair he never wore anymore, because apparently in high school wearing pink makes you a fag.

The stairs were carpeted and creaky, and he'd perfected stepping on the corners and over bent steps for as long as he'd been perfecting his curveball. Anthony and Marietta were dead asleep from a business trip, and he gave up halfway down the steps.

He nearly slipped on the rug in the kitchen before making it to the front door.

"Hi."

"Hi."

Martin wasn't wearing his glasses.

"You're tall enough to see through the door window now."

"I know."

There was a cricket in the planters.

"Where's your truck?"

"In front of the garage door, like you said."

The door didn't lock behind them. It didn't need to.

* * *

_"no one, i think, is in my tree; i mean, it must be high or low._  
_that is, you can't ... you know, tune in, but it's all right. that is, i think it's not too bad."_

"So what're you gonna do about it?"

"I . . . I don't know."

The two of them were seated in the bed of the green truck, parked in the gravel outside the garage door. Crickets were the only things you could hear for miles around.

"I don't want to have to keep meeting up in the middle of the night, that's unrealistic and . . . and ridiculous."

Martin looked at him and smiled. "Thanks."

He'd asked him to stop using words like 'stupid' and 'dumb' not too long ago – a hard habit to break, but a request his companion seemed to heed. His vocabulary accounted for it without a problem.

Preston gave a knowing nod.

"But, like . . . we can't keep doing this, we're not . . . nocturnal creatures. We need sleep because we have to go to school, and . . . and you're gonna have to work, and I have baseball, and . . . and you're gonna have football next year, right?"

"Yeah, but how else are we gonna see each other outside of school?"

He got quiet.

"We might not be able to."

"You think so?"

"Maybe, I don't know . . . we can't go to each other's houses, that's for sure."

"Well, not when our parents are awake, at least. Did you hear what they said to me?"

"You didn't tell them we were dating, did you?"

"What, no." He paused. "But they were still really horrible."

"D'they say something?"

Martin didn't respond.

They'd treated him like he was half his age and didn't know what they were saying. It was the same speech he got when he met anyone's parents. 'I'm so glad he has a friend his age, you seem very nice.' "Kind" parent speak for confusion over why their child picked him over all the other _normal_ kids in his class.

Just because he was used to it, doesn't mean he was okay with it. Few people understood that; Preston, thankfully, did.

He continued.

"Well, I mean, we could meet up here again, but what good does that do? All we can do is sit around and talk to each other and stuff."

Martin shifted. "Well . . . that's not . . . so bad."

Preston looked up at him. There were a few inches between them, not so bad; 5'9" and 6' even. They sat on opposite sides of the truck bed.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean, it's . . . better than having to put up your mentalist parents."

"Well, to be fair, _most_ things are better than having to put up with my mentalist parents."

Martin shrugged. The two of them sat in silence for a minute. Neither wanted to look each other in the eye.

They'd decided to start dating a few months ago. They'd been friends since kindergarten, when they met each other in the ice cream line the day before school started, but that was two educational institutions ago and they were still stuck together. They both knew quietly that it isn't _too_ often someone stays in your life that long without a good reason.

Sometimes they questioned the fact that one of the only reasons they were still friends was being forced to see each other five days a week, but they didn't complain about it too much – school was fine as long as they had a class or two, but you took that away from them and only one of them really knew how to swim in the deep end.

Preston moved to the other side of the truck.

"If they find out about us, what do you think they're gonna do?"

Neither of them wanted to answer that question, but Martin tried. "I . . . I don't know, you'd probably get in a lot of trouble, I guess."

"Yeah, I know that, but . . . really, what would happen?"

"What, if they found out you were gay?"

He sighed. This was not the first correction to be made.

"I'm not gay, I'm bisexual, you _know_ that. It doesn't matter, it's all the same to them, long as they find out I'm not the good straight Christian boy they think I am."

"Why do they even care, you guys don't even to go church!"

"I know!"

They laughed. It was almost an inside joke, but it wasn't very funny.

Every time, something got blamed on something else which got blamed on something else with them.

Preston's eating disorder was blamed on his depression, was blamed on his sexuality, was blamed on his depression, which was blamed on his eating disorder, and the whole cycle started over again.

Martin's emetophobia was blamed on his autism, was blamed on his sexuality, was blamed on his autism, was blamed on his emetophobia, and the whole cycle started over again.

"Do your parents care?"

"What?"

"About _you_ being gay?"

"They don't know."

"I thought you said you told them."

"I, uh . . . I kind of chickened out."

"I'm not surprised, I would've too. Your aunt's a scary lady."

"Hey, don't drag my aunt into this."

"Martin, if there's a homophobic Christian in this town, it's your aunt and you know it."

"Yeah, I do. I mean, I _was_ gonna tell my parents until . . . _she_ showed up and kind of, ruined the operation."

"I know."

He slumped over and hugged him.

"Martin, what are we gonna do?"

He took a deep breath before answering.

"I don't know."

The sprinklers woke them up eventually.

_"let me take you down, 'cause i'm going to strawberry fields; nothing is real and nothing to get hung about . . . strawberry fields forever."_


	3. shine on you crazy diamond

It was weird, not having an answer when your relatives asked you, "So, you datin' anybody?"


End file.
